Bill Allowing NDs to Sign for POLST, IEPs, Home Health & More Poised for Vote

SB 856 has already passed the full Senate and the critical House Health Care Committee with a unanimous bipartison vote. This sets the stage now for a vote in the full House, expected to happen in the next couple of weeks.

OANP’s legislative committee identified over 125 references to “physician” that could be updated to include “naturopathic physician” either to avoid confusion in the law or to reflect the current ND scope of practice. Then we reached out to over a dozen other organizations to solicit feedback on whether there would be any controversy in updating those statutes, and narrowed the list down to just over 100 references.

Initially, the Oregon Medical Association opposed the bill and asked us to remove over one-third of the updates. But a little education goes a long way and after being reassured that these changes are already all in the scope of practice of NDs and simply improve patient access to care, the OMA agreed to stay neutral on the bill.

Dr. Jeff Clark, OANP's Legislative Chair and Dr. Regina Dehen, NUNM's Chief Medical Officer have spent weekends and work days researching the laws and traveling to Salem to give testimony and answer legislators questions. Please thank your advocates by clicking on their names to send them an email!

You’ve all encountered these barriers at some time or another. Statutes that SB 856 would change to add NDs include:

POLST & Advance Directive forms

IEPs for students who have special education needs

Ordering home help and hospice care

Advising minors about birth control

Providing for children in foster care, adoptive families, or wards of state

Last legislative session, OANP passed a bill requiring insurers to create a pathway for NDs to credential as primary care providers. Several insurers complied right away, but a few carriers imposed 1 or 3 year residency requirements that precluded the vast majority of NDs from being able to credential as PCPS. After years of trying to work with insurers and the insurance division remove these discriminatory barriers to credentialing, we are now supporting HB 3400 to specifically prohibit insurers from making additional training a credentialing requirement for NDs.

The bill did not get scheduled for a public hearing and is dead for this session.

Amended - HB 2114 – Would have created criminal penalties for providers who prescribed too many opioids. Has been amended to simply require that licensing boards inform licensees about new prescribing guidelines.

Amended - SB 48 – Requiring continuing education for suicide risk assessment, has been amended to just a requirement that if a licensee takes CE in suicide risk assessment, they must report it to their licensing board and the licensing board will be required to track and report how many licensees are taking such CE.